The Tempest

by James Lilliefors

  DAVE CROWE WAS seated on the large screened porch by the docks. Behind him a cabin cruiser was coming in, blasting a familiar country music song. The restaurant was something of a cliché, with a captain’s wheel, dark wood tables covered with butcher paper, fishnets hanging from the ceilings, lots of neon beer signs behind the bar. It wasn’t the place Hunter would’ve picked for a quiet conversation.

  “Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’ve gotten yourself involved in this?” Crowe said, giving her his self-­assured smile as she sat.

  “A question only you can answer, I suspect,” Hunter said.

  Crowe watched her unfazed. He was a small, good-­looking man, with nice hair, nice bone structure, dark eyes. He was also married, although, like a number of cops and Bureau agents Hunter had known, he seemed comfortable blurring the lines between what was allowed and what wasn’t.

  “I received a letter from our old pal, by the way,” he told her, once they’d ordered drinks. “About a week ago.”

  “Who’s our old pal?”

  “August Trumble.”

  “Oh.” Hunter went cold. This was the way Crowe did things, his dark eyes nailing her across the table, his cheeks creasing as he smiled. Trumble was the serial killer Hunter had helped put away for life, a man the media had christened the “Psalmist.” It should have been a sore subject between them because Crowe had waged a tug of war with Hunter throughout the case. But he was reinventing the past as he talked, which was one of his specialties.

  “He asked how I was. And he asked how you were. Fortunately, we don’t have to deal with him anymore.”

  “Tell me about Scott Randall,” Hunter said.

  His eyes did a dance for a moment. “You first. Tell me your impression.”

  “My impression is that he cares very much about making a case against Walter Kepler. Too much, maybe.”

  Crowe was smiling. “There you go. That’s it, in a nutshell.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he can,” Crowe said, touching his drink glass with his fingertips. “Randall’s headstrong, and he’s finally carved out his own little domain, chief dog of the Stolen Art Division. But keep in mind, this is his third case involving Walter Kepler. Did he tell you that?”

  “He did.”

  “And Kepler won the other two. My impression? I think this is Randall’s last big shot. And he knows it. And frankly? I think he’s worried that Kepler’s the better chess player. I think the boy’s running scared.”

  Drink often added a tone of condescension to Crowe’s speech, so that he used terms like “the boy” and “the kid,” words he’d never use when sober. It also made him sloppy with his metaphors. Clearly this wasn’t his first drink of the day.

  “I know a little about that,” Crowe added, “because I worked the last case. Down in Florida. Randall and Selwyn actually were talking about starting a task force to go after Kepler at the time.”

  “David Selwyn was the head of art crimes before Randall.”

  “That’s right. Then Selwyn got kicked upstairs, mostly because there wasn’t room for the both of them. Selwyn got to the point that he didn’t want to look at Randall’s face anymore, that’s what he told me.” His cheeks creased as he grinned.

  “Randall made Kepler out as a bad guy,” Hunter said. “He told me he thinks he has ties to terrorism. True?”

  Crowe tilted his drink glass. He seemed briefly fascinated with how the light changed in the whiskey. “It’s a big point of contention within the Bureau,” he said. “I don’t think so. I think Kepler is smart. Randall thinks he’s just bad. Bad draws more resources. He wants to Escobar-­size the man to gin up interest. Did he try to recruit you?”

  Hunter shrug-­nodded.

  “The reason I warned you yesterday,” Crowe said, “is because someone else did what you’re doing and it didn’t end up so well. You ought to know that.”

  “What am I doing?” Hunter said. “I’m investigating a homicide in Tidewater County.”

  “No. I mean, someone else got involved with Randall, on a deal having to do with Kepler. Up in Philadelphia last year. Someone Randall thought could get him things he couldn’t get on his own.”

  “Okay. Tell me about that.”

  “I wish I could.” Crowe’s hands circled his drink glass. He gave her a flinty look. “Actually I’m going to put you in touch with a woman who’ll tell you all about it, all right? Ex-­Bureau. She lives out on the Shore, so you won’t have to go far. It’d be worth your while. I just need to clear it with her first.”

  This, too, was typical Crowe, drawing out the drama.

  “Why is Randall so fixated on Kepler?” she said. “I don’t get that.”

  “Obsession.” Crowe shrugged, gripping his drink. “He’s got it in his head that the man’s a killer. And I’m sure it pisses him off that Kepler sees himself as some kind of Robin Hood of the art world.”

  “Is he a killer?”

  “No.” His eyes took in the deck, then returned to her. “I don’t think he is. But . . . There is another theory. Which Randall, I’m sure, didn’t mention to you.” Hunter nodded. “It’s the theory that Kepler has a partner. And it’s the partner who does the dirty work. That’s the real point of contention. Helen Bradbury, this woman I’m going to put you in touch with, tried to push that agenda. I did, too, insomuch as I could. But Randall fought her every step of the way. Every step.

  “Now, I’m not saying Kepler isn’t a bad guy,” he went on. “But he’s also a smart guy, like I say. I’d be more concerned about the smart than the bad. He’s a very hard man to pin down, you’ll find.” Crowe took a long drink of his bourbon. “Let me ask you slomething,” he said. “You know how many objects were stolen in that Gardner deal?”

  “Thirteen? I think.” Did he just say slomething?

  “That’s right.” He smiled up at her for an instant. “The works were split up. The Vermeer went overseas, it was sold off in the South of France, we think, in the late nineties. Two of the others were sold to a Corsican group. And one of those two, the Manet, was down in the Miami area for a while. Kepler tried to broker its sale there last year.” This was the sort of information Crowe wasn’t supposed to talk about and never would have if he hadn’t been drinking. “That’s the deal I was involved in.”

  “So this isn’t Randall’s first connection with Gardner art.”

  “No, second. Kepler was the broker. He represented a buyer who was willing to pay two or three million for the Manet, if Kepler could locate it. The day Kepler’s seller was supposed to show the work, he disappeared. It ended right there. I think Kepler saw red flags, took the money and ran.”

  “Who was the buyer?”

  “Supposedly some sultan type in Dubai.” He gave her a quick, sly smile. “That was the cover story, anyway. The real buyer was Uncle Sam—­although you didn’t hear that from me. That was the real problem. It was supposed to be run as a sting. But Randall got overconfident, and sloppy. He thought he could get the painting and Kepler in one swoop. They got nothing, and Kepler walked away with some of the government’s money—­an upfront broker’s fee, basically. We don’t know for sure that Kepler really even had the painting; my guess is that he didn’t. That’s when Selwyn parachuted out, right after that; he thought Randall was too much of a loose cannon. Randall blamed others, of course, as he always does. And he was promoted, as a result.”

  “So you’re saying the buyer was a straw man the FBI created?” This seemed a little incredible to Hunter.

  “Did I say that?” He grinned into his drink and then downed what was left.

  “And so what about this deal? The terrorist interests he talked about: Is that real?”

  “Well,” he said, “that’s another point of contention. After what happened before, we thought he was ginning this one up, too. But he’s got a CIA liaison involved now, sup
posedly, so I don’t know. Did he mention that?”

  Hunter shook her head.

  “Might be real, might not be. Either way, I think Kepler does have a bead on the painting this time. That’s what I hear.”

  “The Rembrandt.”

  “Yeah. But that’s all just between us.”

  “Who is Scott Randall?” Hunter said. “Do you know him?”

  “Not well, no.” He shook his drink glass, tinkling ice. “Career Bureau type, been involved with stolen art for a lot of years. He’s one of these obsessive guys you don’t want to know too well. Or maybe you do—­but it turns out there isn’t a lot there to know. You follow? He doesn’t have many friends, if any. Long-­suffering wife, not much of a marriage. Second marriage. He takes care of his mother in Virginia, who has advanced Alzheimer’s.”

  He signaled new drinks for both of them. Hunter was still working on her wine and tried to wave off her order but was too late.

  “He’s an obsessive mama’s boy, is what I think,” Crowe added. “Probably gay.”

  Soon Dave Crowe was trying to shift the conversation to her, but Hunter didn’t let it go there. So he talked instead about himself, about his daughter, about his wife wanting to get back to work. Things weren’t so good at home for him lately, he said; but then he always told her that.

  The air had grown misty over the water and it was much cooler by the time they left. They stood for several minutes in the parking lot looking at the moored sailboats. “You want me to drive you?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You want me to drive you home?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

  Hunter drove herself home slowly, her windshield wipers clicking on the slow cycle in the mist, which was thick over the Chesapeake. She felt better traveling through the dark spaces of Tidewater County, seeing stray lights from farmhouse windows and the wavy reflections of the moonlight and open sky on the water. There were two slogans the tourism bureau pushed about Tidewater—­“a land unto itself” and “a land apart.” Pretty trite; but this evening they felt appropriate. There were quieter rhythms to life here, different from anywhere Hunter had lived, and she was growing comfortable with them, even if she didn’t particularly fit in the community.

  She lay awake in bed for a while that night, communing with Winston, her cat, listening to the breezes rattling the sailboats, the creaking of the docks, going over her conversation with Dave Crowe. There were still a lot of questions to answer; but Hunter didn’t know how far Henry Moore, her boss, would want to take this. The more complicated it became, the more the state’s attorney would push the idea that Susan’s death was accidental, she knew. Tidy solutions were a tradition in Tidewater County. Hunter decided she’d get Pastor Luke’s input in the morning.

  She was sound asleep that night when her landline woke her. The effect was like an explosion and Hunter instinctively reached for her state police-­issued Glock .22 in the drawer of the nightstand before realizing what it was. It rang once more and she picked up, expecting Crowe. It was 1:12 in the morning.

  “Hello?”

  “Huuun-­ter.”

  She listened to the breathing on the other end, the same as before. Her heart suddenly felt as if it had doubled in size.

  “Hello,” she said, sitting up. “Who is this?”

  “You’re lucky,” the caller said. “You still have a chance to step away. You understand me? Huuuun-­ter?”

  He was trying to make his voice gravelly and menacing but there was a slurred, high inflection that sounded familiar—­the way he said “still” and the last syllable of “away.”

  “Who is this? What do you want?” she said, trying to draw him out.

  “You know who I am.”

  Yes, Hunter thought. I do. But he hung up before she had a chance to say anything else.

  This time, Hunter called the state police barracks officer and asked him to run a trace on the call. Then Hunter put in her ear plugs and went back to sleep. She slept soundly for another six hours, before Winston woke her up by walking back and forth over her face, ready for his morning tuna ration. “Thanks a lot,” she said, finally tossing back the covers. Winston jumped down and ran into the hallway, squawking as if the building were on fire.

  She went on a hard run along the marina road to Waterman’s Bluff, feeling good, the Beatles blasting on her iPod, then came home, opened a Diet Coke and checked through her e-­mails. Fischer had prepared a file of new material on Joseph Sanders, which Hunter skimmed at the kitchen table. As she was doing so, Henry Moore e-­mailed her to say that he wanted to meet as soon as she could come into the office. Saturday wasn’t going to be a day off.

  She called Pastor Luke after showering, wanting to share with him some of what Crowe had told her, and to feel the anchor of his thoughts. He sounded unusually upbeat this morning. “I just wanted to run a few things by you,” she said. “Maybe later today? Or tomorrow after your ser­vice? Whatever works for you.”

  “How about if we make it tomorrow evening,” Luke said. “We’d like to invite you to dinner.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “No, we’d like to. Nothing fancy. Just crab cakes and a salad. Say, six o’clock?”

  Hunter looked at her posture in the kitchen window and didn’t like what she saw. She sat up straighter. For some reason, the invitation made Hunter uncomfortable. She’d never really talked with Charlotte, who occasionally seemed to have a little attitude toward her. Maybe this would be a chance to get to know her better. Still, she kind of regretted that she had to wait another day to get Luke’s input.

  “Sure,” she said. “That’ll be nice.”

  “Great,” Luke said.

  Hunter printed out the file on Joseph Sanders and read it as she drove in to work, holding the sheets of paper up on the steering wheel. Dave Crowe called her cell as she pulled into the parking lot.

  “Interesting conversation last night.”

  “It was,” she said, glad that he was all right. “Thanks for talking with me.”

  “Have you said anything to Randall?”

  “I haven’t talked with him.”

  “Don’t,” Crowe said. “Well, it’s Saturday, he’s probably with his mother, anyway. She has advanced-­stage Alzheimer’s.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  His voice sounded normal, maybe a little thicker than usual. Crowe never seemed to suffer hangovers in the traditional sense. “Anyway,” he said, “reason I’m calling: I just talked with this woman. She’s got someone visiting for the weekend, but she’ll see you first thing Monday, okay? Her name’s Helen Bradbury. She’s no longer with the Bureau, but she knows a lot and stays connected. She’s full of piss and vinegar. She can tell you more than I can.”

  “About Kepler and Randall.”

  “Yeah, all that,” he said vaguely, and then he gave her Helen Bradbury’s address. “She’ll see you at eight thirty Monday. I’ve already set it up with her.”

  “Does she have a phone number?”

  “She doesn’t give it out. Just show up, she’s expecting you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Henry Moore was in the little conference room in Homicide working, papers spread out across the table, his transistor radio playing easy listening music as Hunter came in. Until she’d met Moore, Hunter hadn’t realized that transistor radios still existed.

  “Morning,” she said. Moore waited before acknowledging her. He was a ruddy, outdoorsy-­looking man, with squinty eyes and a sly, lopsided smile. Hunter liked him a lot, although he could be a taskmaster. She wondered if he was going to scold her now for talking with Crowe.

  “Hunter,” he said, his usual greeting. He turned off the radio, pushed the papers aside and pointed at the chair across from him. “How are you?”
/>   “Fine.”

  He breathed in heavily. “I thought you should know,” he said. “Joseph Sanders has been reported as a missing person.”

  “Really.”

  “Supposed to be home last night, didn’t show up. His wife reported him this morning. He left here yesterday afternoon, evidently, hasn’t been heard from since. Police say his truck was spotted on surveillance camera about twenty miles north of the Virginia line. Which doesn’t fit with any route he would have taken.”

  “Wrong direction.”

  “That’s right, wrong direction.” Moore leaned forward, shifting his weight to his left side, tapping his left hand over the table as he often did, as if the transistor radio was still playing. This wasn’t what she’d thought he wanted to talk about.

  “Was he alone?”

  “Don’t know. The picture doesn’t show much.” He pulled out a printout and pushed it toward her. “Maybe we’ll get something better. It’s still early.” He took another deep breath, his favorite punctuation. “Thoughts?”

  “Well. It may complicate things,” she said.

  “Yep. May.” Moore started to smile, his eyes receding.

  “Fisher’s been running data,” she said. “I just got some new information from him this morning. Sanders worked for Nick Champlain off and on for the past year or year and a half. He also worked construction in Pennsylvania.”

  “Is it possible this was something he might’ve done for Champlain?”

  Hunter frowned. Tanner had suggested the same thing. “Killed Susan while Champlain was out of town, you mean?” she said. “I guess it’s possible.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t see motive. I don’t know why Champlain would want her killed. It doesn’t seem consistent with what we know.” She added, “Of course, there’s still a lot we don’t know.”

  “I understand Sanders may’ve had a gambling problem? Spent some time in the casinos up in Atlantic City?”